


Poinsettia

by RainInTheSummer



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Blushing, Christmas Fluff, Cute, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Silver Fox, Teen Angst, Teenage Rebellion, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 12:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainInTheSummer/pseuds/RainInTheSummer
Summary: The Pines family has come back to Gravity Falls to host a holiday party at the Mystery Shack. Wendy struggles to come to terms with her newfound crush on the infamous Mr. Mystery,  though the task proves to be far more embarrassing than she thought it would be.At least she had the luxury of blaming her red cheeks on the cold winter weather.





	Poinsettia

**Author's Note:**

> A poinsettia is deceptive, in that it's a flower that isn't actually a flower. It has two sets of leaves, green and bright red, the latter of which are often mistaken for petals. During the Christmas season, it's widely used as a decoration. It symbolizes good cheer and success and is said to bring wishes of mirth and celebration.

"Oh, my gosh," Tambry huffed cooly from somewhere over Wendy's shoulder. The redhead felt her mattress dip slightly as the other girl moved from the pile of blankets she'd been texting from for the past half hour to come join Wendy where she was lying at the foot of the bed. She didn't bother turning her head to look at Tambry. The opponent Wendy was currently playing against in Fightfighters Remastered wasn't the sort of casual she usually got paired up against in online matches. This person knew what they were doing. She couldn't afford to take her eyes off the screen for a second. 

"Something juicy, I'm guessing."

"Yeah," Tambry hummed in affirmation. Now that she was right next to her Wendy could pick out the sound of her friend typing something out just above the game's music, the frigid winter storm howling outside her window, and her own furious button mashing. "So you know Jenny, the goth chick who spilled nail polish all over the cafeteria bathroom last week?"

"Uhuh," Wendy muttered absentmindedly, cursing under her breath as her opponent knocked off nearly forty percent of her health bar with a well-timed combo. "What about her?"

Tambry wasn't perturbed by Wendy's less than attentive response. 

"So, it turns out she might have a crush on Mr. Hansen. Apparently, Nate saw her slipping something that looked suspiciously like a love letter into the math homework she handed in. The paper had little hearts on it and everything." Wendy felt her side being elbowed slightly. "Can you believe it?"

Wendy was silent for a few more moments, wholly focused on her game. She tried to bait the person she was playing against into getting a little closer so that she'd be in range for Rumble's signature move, but they seemed to realize what she was up to and kept focusing on projectile attacks. The barrage was spread wide enough that she couldn't really doge and her health bar was gradually widdled down to zero. 

"Ughhh! Are you kidding me," Wendy grumbled at the screen, barely resisting the urge to throw her controller on the ground before turning slightly to address Tambry in a more lighthearted tone. "Man, no way. That had to have been meant for someone else. Mr. Hansen is, like what, forty?"

"Forty-six according to the yearbook," Tambry corrected, not sparing a glance up from her own screen as she responded to both Wendy and whomever she was texting. 

Thinking that this was the end of the conversation, Wendy flopped over onto her back and then took a moment to look over at the window and appreciate her backyard's transformation from green coniferous sprawl, to white, frozen wasteland. She was thankful that she wasn't out in that mess. Almost unconsciously Wendy reached down to pull up one of the toasty warm quilts the other girl had previously abandoned and cocooned herself up in it.

"I can kind of see why she might be into him, though." 

Wendy let her gaze trail up to where her friend was sitting and raised her brow slightly at the comment. Tambry continued on, her tenor taking on a thoughtful, almost wistful quality as she seemed to consider the goth girl's situation. "He's old and a little on the tall and gangly side, but he's also really energetic and has a nice facial profile."

Wendy face screwed up even more at her friend's assessment. "I don't really see it. I just can't get past the age thing. It's too weird."

"Come on, you have to admit that he's actually pretty hot for the dad type," Tambry insisted, finally taking her eyes off her phone and gesturing slightly. "Or, what are they called again? Silver foxes, I think? You know, kinda like your former boss, but minus about twenty years."

Wendy's heart thumped hard against her ribcage for a moment, though she wasn't quite sure why. She pulled her blankets up with her as she sat upright and shot her friend a hard look. "Woah, woah, wait. When you say my 'former boss', you don't mean Stan, do you?"

"Wait, wasn't the other guy Stan? You boss's manic brother who came back after disappearing for a few decades, or whatever. I'm always getting the two of them confused."

"They're both Stan," Wendy corrected bluntly, not for the first time since the Pines family had let that little drama bomb finally go public. "Stanford was the brother. Stanley was the gross old man who formerly ran the Mystery Shack, wore that weird fez, and had a suit that reeked of old paper and cheap cologne."

"Yeah, that's the one." Tambry snapped her fingers in agreement before going back to her phone. Wendy snorted and rolled her eyes.

"Ugh. No way. He's ancient."

"I mean, he's a gross old man, but he's got some pretty attractive features," Tambry absentmindedly insisted, her thumbs working furiously to spam snowflake emojis. "Nice jawline, broad shoulders. If you were, like, Lazy Suzan's age he wouldn't be a half bad catch or anything."

Wendy balked at that. "What? Ew, no!" She could feel her face inexplicably turning beet red and tried to hunch her blanket further up over her shoulders to hide it. "He's... he's Stan. Even if I was as much of a fossil as he was, I'd still never be interested! What's there to even like about him. He's loud, obnoxious, stubborn, cheap. I don't know why you'd even say something like that."

Tambry looked up from her phone and shot the redhead next to her a slightly annoyed look. "Oh my gosh, take a chill pill captain buzz kill. It's not like I was suggesting you go out with him or anything. I'm just saying that he has that same silver fox vibe that Mr. Hansen has going for him."

"No, he doesn't!" Wendy blurted out, far more harshly and loudly than she'd intended to. 

An awkward bout of silence passed between the pair, broken only by the roar of the blizzard outside and the laughter of two of Wendy's brothers from somewhere else in the house. Tambry was looking her over keenly, her usually bored tone and impassive expression already made the girl a difficult read, but now she gave away absolutely nothing. Wendy could feel her cheeks getting hotter under the intense scrutiny, which just made her even angrier. What was wrong with her? It usually took a lot for her to lose her cool over something. Tambry's insinuation was weird but otherwise harmless. It shouldn't have been bothering her this much.

"Okay..." Tambry started out slowly, testing the waters carefully to avoid running into another potential mine in the form of her friend's sometimes explosive temper. "So why exactly are you being so defensive about this? I'm just making a comparison to Jenny's situation. It's not like I'm talking about you or anything."

"I'm not being defensive!" Wendy contended sharply, though she knew she was. She just... didn't understand why. 

Tambry echoed back Wendy's own dizzyingly paced thoughts in her usual dry and indifferent tone. "Uhh, yeah. You kinda are." 

Another moment of silence passed between the pair. Wendy stared determinedly at the small embroidered leaf pattern on the quilt she was wrapped up in while Tambry kept her gaze fixed firmly on her friend next to her. The sound of the darker skinned girl's index finger pensively tapping her phone set Wendy's teeth on edge. It was somehow even worse than the ticking of a clock during a test.

The image of Stan's smiling face as he and his brother had waved goodbye on the skype group chat that her, Soos, and both sets of twins had shared about a week ago flashed in Wendy's mind. It made something in her gut do a slight flip. She'd been thinking about them, all of them, a lot since that call. She'd been stoaked at the prospect of seeing everyone together again when the Pines family had decided that they were going to come back up to Gravity Falls to host a holiday party. 

But she'd thought about Stan the most. Something about his smile in that call unnerved her, made her heart flutter a little faster than it should have. It wasn't an expression that she was used to seeing on him. It wasn't the sort of fake flashy smirk that he put on as Mr. Mystery to milk money out of tourists, or the flimsy grin he wore when trying to spin a lie, or even the insincere way he'd beam when he accepted the praise of others while oddly not seeming to take any of it to heart. 

The smile was... genuine. A genuine happiness that seemed to wipe the decades from him like the waves of the ocean wipe footprints from the beach. He was sailing around the world, living the adventure he'd apparently always dreamed of. Freedom, in its most captivating and blissful form.

Wendy could feel her fingers curling slightly into a fist beneath the soft blanket. Maybe she was jealous of him.

If someone had asked Wendy half a year ago if 'genuine' and 'happy' were words that she would have ever associated with her constantly grumpy, scowling, abrasive boss, she wouldn't have been able to contain her laughter. But things had changed. He'd changed, especially. 

Genuinely happy seafarer... wasn't a bad look on him. Not by a long shot.

Wendy was brought out of her musings by Tambry seeming to reach a conclusion of her own about this situation, her eyes suddenly widening and lighting up in a rare flare of delight for her.

"Wait, you don't-" she started, but Wendy quickly cut her off with a warning glare.

"Don't say it!"

Tambry was grinning smugly now. "OMG, this is exactly how you were acting around Eli Hall back when you had a huge crush on him," she blurted out loudly, completely undeterred by the death stare her friend was giving her. "Don't tell me you actuall-"

Red-faced, livid, and embarrassed, Wendy didn't hesitate. Grabbing a pillow from behind her, she launched herself at Tambry and knocked them both to the rug below with a muffled thud. Before the other girl could get another word out Wendy stuffed the pillow over her mouth and held there. Years of dealing with three nosey younger brother's constantly going through her stuff had prepared her well for situations like this.

"Tambry, I swear I will bury you out in my yard right now if you don't shut it!" Wendy snarled lowly while shoving the pillow down extra hard into the other teen's face to emphasize her words. "No one will find your body till spring!"

Even though she now couldn't see her mouth, Wendy still got the distinct feeling that her friend was smirking up at her. At the very least, Tambry did hold her hands up in surrender, and Wendy obliged her end of the unspoken agreement by sliding off from the girl. Tambry snickered before reaching over to where her phone had landed on the ground and brushing a few stray rug fibers from the screen.

"Relax, I was only joking," she cooed, giving the redhead beside her a knowing look. "You're right Jen is just a weirdo. There's no way you'd ever be able to relate to her, right Wendy?"

Wendy sneered back at Tambery before making a rude comment about her dating Wendy's sloppy seconds in the form of Robbie and then returning to her previously abandoned game of Fightfighters. She was wrong anyways. Stan was just an old sort-of-friend that Wendy missed and was excited to see again after his long absence. That was the reason she was getting all flustered. It had to be. 

The alternative was too mortifying for Wendy to even consider.

\----------

It was warm and cozy in the gift shop turned dining area of the Mystery Shack. Soos, Melody, and Wendy had all gotten breakfast together that morning and then spent most of the afternoon getting the place decorated and ready for the party being hosted later that day. 

The first order of business had been moving out the assortment of knickknacks, curios, souvenirs, and display cases that usually occupied the space and trading them out for several outside picnic tables now adorned with Christmas themed tablecloths. Both girls had worked their way around the walls, tastefully hanging brightly shining gold and red garland around the doors, windows, and moldings, while Soos got up on a ladder and did a slightly more haphazard job of stringing candy-colored lights out over the rafters. They did fairly minimal decoration on the exterior, opting for a simple wreath on the door, a pair of poinsettias placed on the top of the stairs leading up to the porch, and one other... 'special thing', before getting tired of the cold and heading back inside. A few of the new attractions Soos had added during his tenure as Mr. Mystery, like the 'Centaur-taur' taxidermy, Peanut Brittle Presidential Sarcophagus, and Infinite Pizza Slice had been placed around the room at Melody's insistence and adorned with Santa hats, candy canes, ribbons, and various other Christmas paraphernalia. 

Finally, they'd turned their attention to Wendy's old station at the cash register counter and converted it into the snack and drink headquarters of the party, and even from all the way across the room the smell of ginger cookies and peppermint candies permeated the air.

The three had only just barely finished up when Dipper and Mabel had energetically burst in through the door with their parents and grandparents in tow, practically sprinting up to Soos and Wendy and tackling the pair to the ground in with a zealousness amped up by the long car ride they'd been forced to endure. There had been several hours of catching up, getting introductions out of the way, taking pictures with the decorated taxidermy for scrapbooks, snack scarfing, badly sung carol karaoke, and showing off obnoxious, fire hazard worthy Christmas sweaters, before Stan and Ford finally arrived on the scene. Then the party had really gotten started.

That wasn't the only thing that had gotten started, Wendy mused tiredly as she tried to tune in to whatever Dipper was chatting about next to her over the loud pounding of her own pulse in her ears. Something about a high school Robotics team he'd joined over the fall. She hummed in agreement to a complaint he had about another kid on his team, only barely paying attention as she took another sip of her hot chocolate. She felt her gaze drifting away from the preteen and out into the room beyond. 

Someone she thought was her target over by Soos caught her attention for a moment before Stanford turned around and revealed himself as an imposter. The person she was actually looking for was found a little more towards the center of the room. He was over with the twins parents by the Santa hat adorned Centaur-taur, gesturing wildly as he recounted some tale to the pair about escaping the coast guard and unpaid docking fees. Her green eyes greedily drank him in.

He was smiling again, that genuine smile that made something in her chest squirm and her face heat up. Both he and Ford were wearing matching snowflake themed sweaters that Mabel had gifted them with upon their arrival, which is why she'd confused them a few seconds ago. Though, Wendy reflected, maybe she shouldn't have since Stan was still sporting the same scarlet beanie that she'd recalled him wearing in that skype call. Between that and the fez, it occurred to her that red might be a favorite color of his.

Wendy's eyes wandered back down to the paper cup she was holding, and the ruby lipstick stain perched against the rim.

She was usually fairly tomboyish and not the type who liked to wear much makeup, but for parties, Wendy would sometimes do a little mascara or eyeliner, just because. Lipstick was a new one for her, as was the burgundy dress she'd borrowed from Tambry.

Dipper made a chopping motion with his hand beside Wendy that drew her attention back to him. He was trying to add to the dramatic effect of the tale of robot homicide he was telling. The gesture spilled some of the apple cider he was holding onto his shoes, though he so enraptured with his own story that he didn't seem to notice. 

"-and while I was busy trying to stop the circuit board from overheating, The Revenger's robot was finally able to flip itself back over and got in range to slice our flamethrower clean in half," Dipper enthused, before switching over to a slightly more annoyed tone and shooting a conspiratory look up at the redhead beside him. "It's so stupid that we lost to something like that, but, all in all, I guess third place isn't so bad. We at least got metals to take home with us and show off."

Wendy nodded dully, only half paying attention. The cold winter air leaking through the doorframe and biting through her festive cardigan made her glad that she had a hot drink to hold on to. She puckered her lips slightly as she looked out again over the party. Wendy felt overdressed. Why had she picked out an outfit like this? Who was she trying to impress?

It couldn't be Stan. She had no reason to try and look good for his sake. He was just her former boss, an old friend that she'd sort of missed and was happy to see again. Maybe she'd subconsciously wanted to make a good impression in front of Dipper and Mabel's parents and grandparents since this was her first time meeting them?

Yeah, that... must have been it.

Though it didn't explain why she'd been trying her damnest to avoid her former employer all evening.

The minute Stan had walked into the room Wendy's heart rate had at least doubled its usual pace for a reason she couldn't explain. She hadn't even been able to properly greet him and had instead just nodded shyly to him from across the room, pretending to be involved in the rather enthusiastic discussion Mabel and Melody had been having about the engagement ring Soos had picked out. Even then, she had actively avoided him throughout the evening, entering conversations uninvited and briskly leaving them as soon as it looked like he might be heading over in her general direction. Now she was having a somewhat onesided chat Dipper while attempting to sneak a glance at the older Pines every now and then, which really wasn't fair to the preteen beside her.

Dipper apparently agreed if the slight tap he gave her arm to get her to notice him was any indication.

"Uhh, Wendy?" The kid's brow was raised slightly in puzzlement as he stared up at her before trying to follow her gaze to see what it was she'd been looking at before.

"Oh, sorry... I, uh," Wendy stammered, eyes glancing to the side as her mind stumbled over itself to think up an explanation for her earlier distractedness. "I thought I saw a gnome running around near the snacks." 

The redhead cursed inwardly at the poor save and quickly attempted to bring the subject back over to Dipper's Robotics feats before he noticed the faint blush she felt streaking across her freckled cheeks.

"Anyways, that's super cool," She chirped smoothly, smiling down at Dipper. "Man, though, I'm so jealous. I wish the school district here was rich enough to afford programs like that. The closest we've got is the annual Pinewood Derby contest where everyone cheats by sticking fireworks in their cars."

"Woah," Dipper chuckled, "that sounds like a bit of a fire hazard."

"Thomson actually got his eyebrows burned off last spring when we all dared him to stick a Bombing Betty in his car," Wendy confided, green eyes lighting up and a cheeky smirk working its way across her face at the memory. "He just barely managed to put it down on the track when it went off early and set all the other cars around it on fire. He's now banned for life from the derby."

That got an amused snort out of Dipper, a bit more of his cider accidentally sloshing out onto the floor thanks to his abrupt movement.

"Aw man, what I'd give to have seen that." He shook his head slightly before taking a sip of his drink and steering the conversation back towards the previous topic. "Hey, so now that you have your drivers license maybe you could come down and spice up our next competition in February. The other guys on our team would love to hang out with someone as cool as you. Plus you'd make a much better pilot for our robot then Eugene."

While a little expensive in terms of gas, it still seemed like a fun idea to the older teen. She grinned and made a finger gun at the Dipper. "Dude, I'm totally in. What weekend are you-"

"And this here is Wendy, my former cashier." The rest of the redhead's sentence was abruptly interrupted as Stan's rough, booming voice cut in over hers, and a large arm was suddenly draped over her shoulders.

Wendy stood there paralyzed, heart skipping every other beat. She'd been so occupied by her conversation with Dipper that she hadn't even noticed the retired conman creeping up on her. Her eyes anxiously darted over to where he was standing intimately close beside her. He had a bemused expression stretched across his stubbled jawline, his posture relaxed and confident as he leaned slightly into her.

"Honestly, she was pretty terrible at her job, but everyone else in town was unavailable or even worse, so I kept her around," Stan teased, throwing Wendy a sly, playful look before turning back to Dipper and Mabel's dad whom he seemed to be introducing her to. 

"I-uh," Wendy stuttered, her shocked brain failing her as her gaze shifted between the two older men. "Um, H-hey mister Pines."

The teen wasn't even sure which one of them she'd been greeting with that. She could feel her face heating up and desperately hoped her growing blush wasn't as obvious to everyone else as it seemed to be to her. If the twin's father noticed anything though, then he didn't mention it while addressing her.

"So, I hear from Dipper that your father's involved in the logging industry," the man remarked cheerily. "His business must be really booming thanks to all the construction Gravity Falls needed after those freak earthquakes hit the town this past summer."

"Y-yeah.. there was..." Wendy was finding it hard to talk, hard to think. It was difficult to focus on anything other than the arm cozily draped around her shoulder, and the man attached to it. Stan was close enough that she could smell the cheap cologne, sea brine, and old wood aroma that was radiating off from him. She couldn't bring herself to look over to him, but her ears were filled with the thundering of her own pulse all the same.

"Well, w-we had a lot of orders to fill," Wendy finally managed to stammer out. "For sure."

"Yeah," her former boss groused from her right as he addressed the other Mr. Pines far, far too close to Wendy's rapidly reddening ears. His rough, calloused hand squeezed slightly around her left shoulder opposite him, and the teen's breath caught in her throat for a moment at the gesture. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage. "One of the benefits of having Wendy working for me was that her old man gave me a discount whenever I had to spruce the place up, which was pretty convenient when you take into account how many times your little gremlins trashed it."

Wendy didn't understand what was going on with her, why she was reacting like this. It's was just Stan, for crying out loud! Just her former boss and paycheck signer. The guy who she'd had to fetch orthopedic pillows for whenever he'd overextended himself during work and threw out his back. The mysterious old man who she'd known for running a hokey tourist trap even since she was a kid, since even before she could remember. 

It didn't make sense that she was suddenly tongue-tied around him, that his voice made her chest tighten, that she was utterly losing her shit over simply being touched by him. She was behaving like a dumb schoolgirl in front of her...

Oh. Oh no. Tambry couldn't have been... No. Shit. Shit! Wendy's head was spinning. She needed to get out of here. She needed air.

The twin's dad chortled at Stan's previous comment, his glasses flashing and reflecting the bright multicolored lights hanging above as he shook his head in bemusement. "Ah. Who do you think your fooling Stan? This place was nearly falling apart even back when I came up to visit after college. What happened? Did Mabel sneeze on a door handle and the whole thing fell off its hinge-"

Mr. Pines cut himself off midsentence at Wendy's abrupt movement out from under Stan's arm and over to the gift shop's entrance next to them. She didn't look back at the three, or the rest of the party going on behind her, before yanking the door open and stepping out onto the soggy, slush-covered welcome mat of the front porch. She definitely didn't want to look behind her and see whatever expression her former employer had made to accompany his surprised "Huh?"

"Hey, Wendy?" She heard Dipper hesitantly call to her back in confusion. The redhead ignored him for a moment as she busied herself with setting her now lukewarm drink to the side and then switching out of her flats and into the snow boots she'd previously hiked over in. She threw a dismissive wave and curt response over her shoulder as she started to close the door behind her.

"I need to go get some air. I'll be back in a little bit."

As the door clicked closed, the warm yellow light from the interior of the Mystery Shack disappeared from the damp wooden deck below, and the exuberant chattering to her back became muted. The dreary twilight of the pristine, snow-covered forest beyond almost seemed oppressive in its quietness, but the frigid air at least felt pleasant against the boiling blood in her face. Wendy spared one last look back at the wreathed door of the gift shop, before making up her mind. Furrowing her brows in a mixture of determination and dejection, she stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets, hopped off the porch, and began to make her way towards the imposing silhouettes of the tall dark pines. The sound of her footsteps was muffled by the ankle deep snow.

Why, Wendy wondered angrily to herself as she trudged on. Why Stan? Why someone who was at least forty years her senior and well into retirement? Why now suddenly, and not once before in all the years she'd previously known him? What had changed? Him? Her?

Well, the first part at least, she might've had an idea about.

Wendy definitely had a type, and though she'd never really thought of it that way before, she supposed that Stan did check a lot of those boxes for her. Broad shoulders, big arms, sharp jawline, marked with something like tattoos, or a brand in her former employer's case. A little crass and rough around the edges. A tough guy attitude with a secret soft side. Courageous and flashy, but tempered with cunning and insight. He was an almost beat for beat stereotype of the slick, charming rogue. The trickster jerk with the heart of gold.

Most of Wendy's previous boyfriends had been something akin to that, with the only notable exceptions being Danny and Robbie who'd both been rebounds. 

Yeah, it was one question sort of answered, Wendy supposed. She paused in her musings for a moment to kick out at a small clump of ice that was on the path she was walking. It didn't do much to alleviate her irritation. 

On a purely technical level Stan did meet quite a few of her requirements, even more than most of the boys she'd dated in the past had. But even so, the gap between their ages should have immediately disqualified him. Right? So, why hadn't it?

She wasn't really sure about this one. No obvious answers seemed to spring to mind. Contrasted to the likes of Fiddleford McGucket, Stan didn't look terrible for someone his age, but she couldn't really say that he carried his decades well either. While his twin had at least some small hints of his previously brown hair left, Stan's mane was uniformly slate grey. His face was deeply lined, and his skin was weathered, calloused, and wrinkly everywhere else. He was naturally on the grumpy side, watched boring old movies, and often complained about bodily aches and pains. Even his fashion sense was something that seemed as though it'd had been lifted straight from a 70's magazine. 

All of this should have bothered her, and it did, a little. But the qualities she liked about Stan weren't really affected by his age and seemed to far outweigh the cons at any rate. Despite no longer being in his prime, the man was still fairly well built and scrappy, more than capable of holding his own in a fight. In fact, aside from her own father who was an absolute beast of a man, Wendy didn't think there was a person in the whole town who could beat him in a one on one. And to be fair, his grey hair didn't necessarily look terrible on him either. What had Tambery called it again? A 'Silver Fox'?

Wendy hummed slightly at that. The term implied a sort of slimness that didn't seem fitting for Stan's body type. 'Iron Rhino' was the first term that sprung to her mind, and the teen could feel her face flushing slightly at the thought of it, at the thought of Stan's strong broad shoulders, ashen hair, and smoldering dark eyes. A memory of him smirking at her sent shivers up her spine that had very little to do with the frosty air.

Some snow was beginning to collect on her shoulders, and the teen brushed at it halfheartedly before bringing herself to a halt to take in her surroundings. She was fairly deep into the forest now, though she could still see slivers of the shack's yellow light peeking out from between the dense pines. It was probably best not to go any further in than this. Getting lost in the woods in the dead of winter while it was snowing and night was about to fall seemed like a monumentally stupid thing to do, especially in her current outfit.

The fog from Wendy's breath curled into the frigid air as she let out another frustrated sigh. Not quite ready to go back yet, the teen trudged a few steps over to the tree nearest her and leaned back against it. She stared dully up at the snow covered branches, the flakes gently swirling down all around her, and the dreary grey skies far above it all.

Maybe, she speculated, absentmindedly wiping a stray snowflake from off her cheek, maybe it had less to do with how old Stan looked, and more to do with how he carried himself. How her perception of a lot of his previously unassuming quirks had changed, and her opinion of him along with it. 

Despite having worked for him for well over a year before the start of the summer, Stan had always been a bit of a stranger to her. He'd kind of been a stranger to the whole town, actually. Sure, everyone in Gravity Falls knew who he was. Stan Pines, Mr. Mystery, was the shyster who ran the corny tourist trap down on Gopher road. He was the experienced businessman who took credit for drumming up some of the towns 'supernatural hoaxes', 'legends', and 'lore' in the local newspaper as part of a supposed scheme to promote his establishment. He was a grumpy old man who'd yell at you for loitering around his property without spending any money. He was the sleazy con who told tales so tall that even the kids in town didn't believe a word of it. He was the mystery hack, possible ex-felon, who went almost everywhere sporting an odd combination of fez, thin bow tie, and cheap black suit. Everyone in town had known who Stan Pines was.

But no one had really known him. Not in the way that mattered. No one had guessed what it was that he was actually after. No one had thought about why he'd stuck around in the town despite there being better spots for tourist traps elsewhere. No one had seen through the jaded persona he put up to disguise how deeply he actually cared. No one had considered that the obviously fake attractions at the Mystery Shack might have just been a front to hide something far more real and dangerous underneath. No one had really known Stan at all. Not until recently. Not until this past summer. 

Wendy's hands were starting to get stiff and cold in her pockets. She brought them out and attempted to warm them by rubbing them together, and then cupping them over her mouth and breathing into them. It didn't have much of an effect. She wished she'd brought her gloves out with her, or maybe even her heavier jacket, but those had both been left in the shack's kitchen when she'd first come over to help Soos and Melody decorate. She hadn't had the patience, nerve, or presence of mind to grab them before she'd stormed off into the woods. The redhead stood there leaning up against the tree and shivered slightly. Some of the powdery snow that had gathered on her shoulders again was shaken off and floated languidly down to the ground around her. 

Still, even though it was a bit cold, she felt better now than she had before in the shack when the blood rushing to her face had been a practically searing swelter. She much preferred being cool-headed and laid back to being hot-tempered and flustered. It made it easier to see things clearly. Ice was much more her element than fire. 

Wendy stared blankly down at the snow for a few more moments before her brows furrowed introspectively over her half-lidded gaze.

Like a poinsettia wasn't truly a flower, Stan Pines was not what he'd seemed. 

Wendy, for her part, could point to four major instances over the summer that had made her realize this. 

The first had been seeing her former boss interact with Dipper and Mabel when they'd first arrived in town. A sort of softness had begun to creep into his words and actions that hadn't previously been there, or that she just hadn't noticed before. He'd taken care to accommodate them in a lot of little, unassuming ways, like monitoring his swearing or avoiding his usual favored vices of alcohol and cigars. His rough edges became a little more refined in their presence. He was still cantankerous, he was still Stan, but after that, he'd seemed far less meanspirited and aloof. More bark than he was bite. 

The second realization had come after the reveal of his secret twin brother, and boy, had that been a paradigm shift. Almost overnight Stan had gone from a greedy charlatan who had a slight soft spot for his family, to a man who was so wholly dedicated to the people he loved that he would spend over thirty years trying to undertake what most would consider a completely hopeless cause. But that wasn't the only thing that had changed about him. Without the need to maintain secrecy constantly weighing down on his shoulders, Stan had started presenting himself in a way that was a lot more open and approachable, almost friendly for as much of a natural grouch as he was. Wendy had suddenly found it easier to strike up casual, non-work related conversations with him than before. And then there was the issue of his newly, but also not so newly, strained relationship with his brother too. That look of bitterness, defensiveness, and disappointment that had flashed across his face whenever someone mentioned his twin's name had evoked a genuine sense of empathy from Wendy that she'd never thought she'd feel for the older man.

The third instance had been visiting the Pines shortly after the events of Weirdmageddon and witnessing the infamous 'con artist turned town hero' while he was still in the process of regaining his memories. The Stanley Pines she'd gotten to know during that period had been fairly optimistic, untroubled, somewhat gullible, and... genuine. It was a version of the man that had seemed almost unrecognizable to just about everyone around him, everyone save for his twin brother Stanford. He was who her old boss was when stripped of nearly all his past experiences, both good and bad, unburdened by the hand life had previously dealt him. That man had quickly faded back into nonexistence as Stan's temporary amnesia was alleviated over the next week or so, but the impression he'd left on Wendy stuck with her.

The fourth and final instance had been the goodbye Stan had given her right before he and his brother had left Gravity Falls to go pursue their childhood ambition of sailing around the world together. He'd shared a genial hug with her, just as he had with Soos, and tried to undercut the unusual display of tenderness with his very usual grumbling. But the smile on his face as he'd pulled away... that smile... made something in her chest twitch. It woke up a yearning within her. The smile was honest, and so unlike Stan's typical phony salesman grin. It had the sort of air a man carried at the end of a long and arduous campaign when he'd won all the battles that had truly mattered. Someone ready to enjoy his freedom and well-deserved rest. A look of peace, relief, and contentment. It had made Wendy jealous. No, even worse. It had made her admire him.

And that, at its core, Wendy supposed, was probably what had made her crush on Stan as debilitating and troublesome as it was. It wasn't just that she was attracted to his crass charm. It wasn't just the fact that his slightly longer hair and better fitting jacket had given him that 'silver fox vibe' that seemed to wipe decades off from his countenance. It wasn't just that she'd gotten to know a different side of him during the summer, a courageous, more clever, and kinder side of him that she hadn't been aware of before. No. The true nail in the coffin here was that Wendy had a teeny tiny, itsy bitsy case of hero worship when it came to the older man, and that was something that she just didn't know how to deal with. 

Even with some of her previous boyfriends, Eli especially whom she'd also started out with a full-blown stuttering crush on, there had at least been a sense that she was standing on equal footing with them. She'd liked them a lot, but she hadn't idolized them. 

Stan though... he was different. Stan was a few steps above her. He was a free man living the life that she wished she could. She was envious of him. She wanted to be more like him.

She wanted to be held close by him, just like he had done earlier that night in the gift shop. She wanted to feel his strong warm embrace wrapping around her shoulders again. She wanted to have h-

"Hey, kid, is everything alright?"

Wendy jumped in surprise at the gruff voice that suddenly sounded off right next to her, and in the heat of the moment, slammed her head back against the tree she was leaning on so hard that she saw stars. The teen hissed and then cursed under her breath at the pain before turning to look at the man who'd joined her out in the cold. For the second time that night Wendy's former boss had somehow managed to sneak up on her. Likely, the redhead noted in dull frustration, aided by the soft powdery snow concealing his footfall.

The older man was wincing in sympathy at the teen's injury. She tried not to pay that too much mind as she occupied herself with pulling her hair out from where it had gotten slightly stuck in the pine tree's bark. It was bad enough that his mere presence had sent her heart racing, but to top it off she's made a fool of herself in front of him. Again.

"Ouch. That's probably gonna leave a bump. You ok?"

"Yeah," Wendy affirmed a little tersely. "Yeah, I'm f-fine."

A beat of awkward silence passed between the pair, and the somber hush of the frozen forest offered no reprieve. Wendy's face was red hot, and her stomach was doing flip-flops again. She felt like she was going to be sick. Why was he the one who'd come out here to get her? How on earth was she going to extract herself out of this fine mess when she could barely form coherent sentences in front of him? Why did it have to be him she fell for, of all people?

As though a muted reflection of her own internal agitation, Stan began rubbing the back of his neck and glancing to the side, seeming slightly uncomfortable as well. 

"Uh, well... Look," he started, breaking the quiet first. "Dipper thinks I did something to upset ya, so he kept pestering me until I came out here to apologize. Not really sure what I'm apologizing for though since I didn't do anything wrong." He looked back to her and offered a slight snicker, as though sharing a private joke. "Well, not that I can remember, at least."

Wendy looked down and away from the older man. In the cloudy twilight, the frozen snowbank below her seemed to give off an almost eerie sort of shine. She offered a stiff shrug in response to Stan's question but said nothing else.

There was really nothing that the teen could actually think to say to his remark. It certainly hadn't been his fault, but there was no way that she could explain what the actual problem was either. A grimace stretched across her jaw at the memory of the stuttering mess she'd been in the shack earlier. No way. Not a chance. Never. 

Stan didn't quite seem to know how to take her flustered silence. His brow pensively inched up his forehead as he and hazarded a guess.

"Wait, this isn't about that soulless ginger joke I told Soos earlier?" he grumbled lowly, "because usually, you're pretty good humored about that sort of thing."

Wendy shook her head miserably. Her heart gave another longing lurch against her sternum. She desperately hoped that Stan wasn't currently picking up on the blush that she could feel blazing upon her cheeks. Even the brisk winter air around her couldn't alleviate the scorching heat of her face. 

This wasn't fair. Hadn't she already humiliated herself enough for one night?

"No, it's.. it's not that," she murmured to her feet.

Stan tried again, his tone taking on a slightly sarcastic pitch as he became more annoyed by her avoidant behavior.

"Well, then what is it? My usual sparkling personality pissing you off?" he barked. "Because I'm not apologizing for something stupid like that."

The redhead finally allowed her gaze to slip back over to the man standing ankle deep in the snow beside her. Sporting only the blue snowflake sweater Mabel had gifted him with earlier that evening instead of the heavier raincoat she'd seen him come in with, he really wasn't any better dressed for the frigid weather than Wendy herself was. She couldn't help but wonder if the twins had maybe pushed him out the door in a rush to make sure that he smoothed things over with her as quickly as possible. 

Another grimace started to work its way onto her face at the thought. She felt bad that he was stuck out here in the cold because she couldn't get her shit together. He should be spending this precious time inside the comfortably cozy shack with the rest of his family instead. This wasn't fair to him.

"Look," Wendy snipped dismissively, "it's got nothing to do with you, alright. I... I'm just in a bad mood."

The teen tried her best to ignore the sluggish scorching heat in her chest and face, and the slight watering in the corners of her eyes. This wasn't who she was. She shouldn't have been losing her cool like this, especially not over something as harmless as a crush. And yeah, so what if she did have a bit of a crush on the older man. No big deal, right. It was still just Stan.

Her former employer's steely expression seemed to soften a tad as he caught sight of her distressed one. He still had a stern look in his eyes, but his tenor was more gentle when he spoke to her again. 

"Ya didn't seem to be in a bad mood before when you were talking to Dipper," the older man noted. 

Wendy didn't respond save to let her gaze trailed back down to the ground again. She really didn't want to do this. Not now. Not with him.

Stan took another step towards her, and Wendy's heart skipped a beat. Part of her was hoping that he would put a hand on her shoulder again, and the other was shrieking like a wet cat at the idea. To both her disappointment and relief he didn't come that much closer. His brow furrowed as he started to open his mouth, about to say something to her, but he then closed it again shortly afterward. Stan's expression became unreadable for a moment. Then he grumbled and shook his head, his silvery snow-speckled hair and glasses shining slightly in the dreary overcast light

"Come on," he pressed. "Just tell me how I've screwed up so we can both go back inside. I'm freezing my butt off out here." He made a somewhat overexaggerated move of rubbing his arms to emphasize his point.

Wendy stared anxiously out into the bleak winter forest and once again responded by simply shrugging. The sound her shoulders made as they scraped up against the pine bark behind her seemed loud in the relative hush.

Stan growled something impolite under his breath about 'erratic teenagers'. The teen in question wasn't looking at Stan, but she could still feel the weight of his irritated glare boring into her.

"Well, so long as we're stuck out here doing nothing..." he drawled after another bout of silence passed between them. 

The older man fished around in his pockets for a moment before pulling out a small cardboard box and a lighter. Wendy's brow rose in interest as he flipped the carton lid open and pulled out what looked to be several brown paper stick. They were too small to be cigars.

"Are those cigarettes?" she asked, the blush her on her cheeks cooling slightly as her curiosity was piqued.

"Uh-huh," Stan grunted, sticking one of the aforementioned cigarettes into his mouth before shooting a conspiratory look to her over the rim of his glasses. "This stays between you and me, alright kid."

Wendy gave a small smirk and nodded. 

"'Sides," the older man added after a beat, his face screwing up into a guilty frown. "It's just a one-time thing. A special occasion."

Wendy certainly wasn't going to begrudge him that or go tattling. If anything, the prospect of rule-breaking excited her. She could feel her heart beat slowing and previously stiff posture loosening a smidgen as she and her former employer fell into a familiar and comforting repertoire. 

"So, why are they brown?" she casually asked.

"They're supposed to be gourmet cigarets, apparently." Stan mumbled as he clicked his lighter. A small orange flame appeared, and he brought it up to light the tobacco product he had clenched between his teeth. He took a huff and let out a sigh of relief. His shoulders relaxed as the twin trails of smoke from both his cigarette and exhalation curled and twisted up past the gently falling snow, out into the gloomy grey sky.

"Sounds like a scam to jack up the prices to me," he continued after finishing his drag. "But I didn't pay for 'em so I guess I've got no room to complain. One of my old priso-"

The older man gave the teen beside him a tense glance as he abruptly cut himself off. He took another puff of his cigarette and then amended his previous statement.

"Err. One of my penpals from Colombia gave them to me as a gift about two months ago. Haven't had a chance to smoke any yet since I've been stuck out at sea with Ford for almost all of that time."

"What difference does that make?" Wendy asked, shifting slightly against the pine tree so that the could face Stan more comfortably. "Is there some maritime law saying that you can't smoke on a ship?"

Her former boss's brows rose into his hairline at her comment. He chortled, which then broke out into a small coughing fit as he choked on a mouthful of smoke.

"Pfft. Not that I know of." He smirked, eyes still watering slightly. "And even if there was some kinda dumb environmental laws in place, or whatever, no sailor worth his salt would follow a rule like that."

Stan shook his head, bemused. Some of the snow that had been collecting on his bright red beanie fell down onto his shoulders at the motion. 

"Nah, the issue is that Ford would never allow it, and with the Stan O'War II being as small as it is there's no place that I could do it where I wouldn't get caught by him."

"Your brother isn't a fan of smoking I'm guessing."

The orange glowing embers at the butt of Stan's cigarette dimmed to grey for a moment as he took another long drag. The man shrugged, once again appearing uncomfortable and slightly guilty looking to Wendy.

"Eh," he grumbled. "Ford was the one who had to help me quit when I got really addicted back in junior high, so I get why he's such a stickler about it." 

Abruptly Stan let out a terse snort and offered a sly grin in the redhead's direction, something impish apparently springing to his mind.

"Man, I gotta send you and the kids a picture of some of the dirty looks he throws at me whenever I start browsing the cigar racks in some of the port stores we visit. I'm half convinced that he went and got himself some eye lasers during his time in that sci-fi sideburn dimension and keeps trying to shoot me with 'em."

Wendy snickered at the description, but her expression quickly turned to one of puzzled playfulness as something Stan had admitted to caught her attention. Her cool, half-lidded gaze lit up slightly as she looked to her companion.

"Woah, Woah. Wait. You started smoking all the way back when you were in junior high?" An impudent smirk was starting to work its way across her freckled face.

Stan gave a tight uncomfortable smile at her question before shrugging dismissively.

"It was a different time," he groused. "How else do you think I got a voice that sounds like I gargle nails."

The older man's gaze trailed down to the cigarette he was holding, and he gave it another appreciative puff. "Though, if the extra year and a half that Ford was stuck with that squeaky puberty voice is anything to go by, I'm almost glad for it, probable throat cancer and all."

Wendy leaned there for a moment, watching her companion smoke as the snow fell all around them, enjoying the chilled air. She was feeling a lot better now than she had earlier in the evening, likely due to the lack of major studdering, blushing, or other incidents in their conversation so far. She was feeling bolder too. Rebellious.

"Can I try one?"

Stan didn't seem amused by her request. His expression was deadpan.

"What do I look like, a charity? Go bum cigarettes off of someone else. 'Sides," he added, wiggling his between his fingers. "These things are bad for you."

"It's not like you seem to care about that," the redhead cooly pointed out.

Her former employer glowered and took another drag. "Yeah, well don't let my charming demeanor fool you, I'm kind of a garbage person. You shouldn't be aspiring to be like me anyway."

The statement struck a raw nerve. Wendy could feel her blood starting to get feverishly warm again. Green eyes glaring, she pushed herself off from the pine tree and closed the small distance between Stan and herself. The smell of his tobacco smoke was overpowering now, almost stronger than the scent of pine sap that permeated the forest around them. It tickled at her nose.

"Screw you! I can aspire to do, or be, whatever I want," she asserted tersely, poking a finger at the old con. "And I don't need you, my dad, my friends or anyone else telling me otherwise!"

Before Stan had a chance to properly respond, Wendy shoved her hand into the pocket that she'd seen him put the carton of cigarettes and lighter back in, and fished them both out. The older man made a noise of surprise, and then outrage, but she ignored both. It might have been a slight overextension of her flustered nerves though, as being in such intimately close proximity to the current object of her affections caused her blood to start blazing and heart to pound deafeningly against her ribcage. The redhead grit her teeth and pushed through the embarrassment anyway. She had something to prove, and she was determined to do just that, debilitating crush or not.

Picking out one of the cigarettes from the carton, Wendy popped it between her teeth and then started flicking at the lighter. Thanks to her cold and practically numb fingers it took a few tries, but eventually, she was able to get a small flame going.

"Yeesh, you're a real knucklehead, ya know that," Stan grumbled, looking the teen over with a mixture of irritation and wry amusement as she brought the fire up to her cigarette and lit it just as she'd seen him do earlier. He shook his head tiredly. "Feels like I'm looking in a mirror." 

Wendy threw the older man a cheeky smirk as she flipped the lighter closed one-handed, and then tossed it and the cigarette carton back to him. Stan was quick enough to catch the former, but not the latter. He growled a couple curses under his breath as he was forced to bend over and retrieve his now slightly damp cigarettes from where they'd fallen in the snow, but there surprisingly wasn't much heat behind his scowl when he stood back up and looked at her. If anything, he seemed almost thoughtful

"Ya know," Stan mused dryly, tapping lightly on his cigarette to knock some of the ash on the end lose. "One of the main reasons I actually kept you on is that you don't take shit from authority, even me. Don't get me wrong, dealing with your constant slacking and mouthing off was a pain in my ass. But I can respect people who aren't spineless and are willing to take risks."

Wendy's brows furrowed in confusion. She'd been aiming to piss her former employer off and was a little discouraged by his rather mild response. Getting a rise out of Stan had always been easy before, the man did have quite a temper after all, but for a reason she couldn't decipher he hadn't taken her bait just now.

The motive behind the older man's lack of apparent anger became clear to Wendy as soon as she took a large drag of the cigarette she was holding. The teen's half-lidded eyes suddenly shot wide open and her expression twisted into one of revulsion. She was promptly sent into a violent coughing fit that caused her to nearly double over into the snow. Stan stood there unhelpfully, doing a poor job of containing his low chuckle as he listened to her hacking and sputtering. A sly smirk plastered itself across his face as he took another mocking puff of his own cigarette and blew some of the smoke out at her direction.

"Even if you do end up looking kinda dumb sometimes," he chortled smugly.

Wendy glared at the man through watery green eyes and stuck her tongue out before pulling herself upright and stubbornly putting the stolen cigarette back between her lips. She took a much more measured huff this time around, but the taste of the smoke that filled her mouth was still horrible and, once again, she couldn't stop herself from coughing slightly in response.

"It's not so bad," the teen offered unconvincingly through her strained and sniffling voice. Stan just sneered and raised his brow in response.

"Uh-huh."

The older man started to take another drag, but his hand stopped just before the cigarette reached his mouth. His expression twisted from amused, to puzzled, to slightly annoyed as he seemed to realize something.

"Ah nuts, I was cussing a bit earlier, wasn't I? Damn it." 

Stan's eyes widened as that extra bit of profanity accidentally slipped through at the end, and he quickly slammed his hand over his mouth in response. He stamped his foot in frustration, kicking up a bit of snow over towards Wendy's direction in the process. 

"Errrrghhh! I mean, Hot Belgian Waffles! And I was so good about not swearing in front of the kids all summer too. I nearly did it twice to Mabel just today." His irritated scowl seemed to deepen at the memory. He bit down hard on his cigarette and shoved both his hands roughly into his pockets. 

"Me and my 'darn' sailor's mouth."

Wendy tossed her own still glowing cigarette down into the snow below already deciding that she'd had enough of it. She sniffed, wiped her red, runny nose on her sleeve, and nonchalantly shrugged her shoulders at the older man. "Well, it's just me out here, so don't feel like you have to work too hard to set a good example."

Stan chuckled darkly. "Heh, the only example I am is an example of what not to be."

Wendy frowned at the man's comment before mirroring his movement and slipped her freezing hands into her slightly less freezing pockets. Her restless gaze slid off into the dark and somber forest beyond. The image of her father and brothers flashed in her mind's eye for a moment, and her vibrant green eyes turned piercing and cold. The pines around them were so densely packed that they almost seemed oppressive, like prison bars holding her in. They were slender frosted wraiths towering above her, creaking and groaning slightly under the force of the winter wind.

The teen found herself wanting to go get her ax so that she could just chop the whole damn forest down.

"Wish I could do that," Wendy remarked bitterly. She wasn't looking at Stan, and, if anything, seemed to be talking more to herself than him. "Wish I could just be a bad example. Drop out, do what I want, go where I want, and not have to worry about anyone else." 

Her scowl deepened into something more ominous, and her heart beat heavily with the weight she'd carried for so many years. A burning tightness was starting to creep into her lungs, further intensified by the frigid air she was breathing in. 

Stan said nothing. He was respectfully still and quiet, as one might be during a prayer. His cigarette smoldered in his mouth, seemingly forgotten. It's smoke trailed listlessly up into the cold air.

"I got stuck with three younger brothers," Wendy continued after a beat. Her sharp gaze was still piercing into the forest beyond, her tone heated, and unpleasant. "And all my dad has ever gone on about since I was a kid is how I have to set a 'good example' for all of them. Ever since mom-"

The teen's expression hardened, and she quickly cut herself off. Wendy hadn't meant to mention the absent woman. 'She' was a taboo in the Corduroy household. A phantom that everyone tried to forget and ignore, including Wendy herself. Especially Wendy herself. 

Wendy's scorching gaze fell and began boring holes into the snow beneath her. Hot, torrid tears stung in the corners of her eyes. After a small pause, she started again. Her quiet murmur warbled slightly. 

"It was... It was like he wanted me to replace her." 

Abruptly, she whirled on her companion, red hair and burgundy dress swinging out wildly at the motion and blowing off most of the snow that had collected on her. All the sorrow and grief she'd been carrying with her for years suddenly spilled out like boiling water and morphed into a bitter burning fury. When she spoke to Stan again her voice had raised to the point that it was almost a yell.

"Well, what if I don't want that responsibility, huh!" she bellowed. "What if I want to make my own mistakes and live my life my own way without constantly having to worry about how my actions affect them!" 

Wendy's heart was beating sickeningly in her chest. She was panting heavily, as though she'd just been sprinting. White whisps from her foggy breath fitfully coiled and danced out in front of her.

Stan's face was stony, patient, and unreadable. He said nothing. The snow continued falling silently all around them.

The teen felt herself deflate slightly under his calm and deliberate gaze. Her cheeks were flushed red in embarrassment over her unintentional outburst. 

"I just-I've always had to-" she stammered. Wendy looked to the older man meekly, expression forlorn. Her voice grew quiet again.

"Do you... know what I'm talking about?" she asked.

Stan drew his hand out of his pocket and carefully reached up to pull the mostly spent cigarette out of his mouth. He tapped it a couple of times to knock the ash at the end lose, and it fell upon the pristine white snow below in small dark splotches.

"Yeah. Sort of," the older man grumbled lowly. His steely expression melted into something slightly more gentle. "Careful what you wish for there kid, 'cause something like that usually ends up being a double-edged sword." 

Wendy's green eyes along with her temper started to spark up again in bitter envy. She let out a terse breath through her nose. "Yeah, easy for you to say! You already got to leave home and live your life however you wanted. Even now, you have the freedom to live your dream of sailing around the world. I don't even know what I want aside from what my family expects me to want."

Stan sighed, shaking his head tiredly. Some of the snow that had gathered upon him fluttered to the ground at the motion. His gaze slunk away from the teen and out into the dim forest behind her. 

"Sure," he dully agreed. "When you really strike out on your own you can self-destruct and make as much a mess as you want, and the people you care about won't really get hurt by any of it, but..."

The older man trailed off for a moment. His previously keen stare faded into something very bleak and distant. It was as though he was staring somewhere even farther out beyond the woods, beyond the town, beyond the years, and it made Wendy feel somewhat spectral, invisible. Then Stan seemed to come back to the present. His glasses flashed with a cold, somber glow as he once again locked eyes with her. His voice was firm, steely, and grim.

"Ya end up being so busy cleaning up the mess you've become that you aren't really in any shape to help them out when they need you. And when the time comes that ya might need them, you'll be too ashamed of your dumpster-fire of a life to let anyone else help you. If they'd even want to help you." 

Stan raised his brow and shot the teen an almost melancholy smirk. He took another long drag from his cigarette, then shrugged dismissively, doing a rather poor job of feigning indifference to and detachment from his previous statement. 

"If they think you're too far gone," he muttered dryly, "they might just let you sink or swim on your own. It's a real lonely kind of life."

The shift from Stan's usual good-humored grump demeanor into something more low-spirited sobered Wendy somewhat. She frowned and blushed a little, feeling slightly guilty about her previous comment. It wasn't as though she'd meant to take all of her turbulent emotions out on her former boss, it had just sort of... happened. Regardless of her crush, she still felt comfortable confiding with him in a way that she didn't feel with many others. She thought that maybe, in a way, they were sort of kindred spirits.

"I'm guessing you've experienced something like that before?" she asked gingerly.

Stan stuck his cigarette back between his teeth and grunted in affirmation. "Yeah, several times before. Worst Christmas I ever spent was in seventy-eight. Screwed up a job. Got my car impounded. Blew the last of my money except for enough to make a short phone call. Unfortunately, my dad was the one who picked up the phone."

The older man breathed tersely through his nose. His posture suddenly became stiff, and he rolled his shoulders as though trying to dislodge some invisible weight that had settled there. His grimace was bitter despite the aloofness of his tone. 

"After I told him what happened he just said 'Merry Christmas, Stanley', and hung up. I spent the rest of the night sleeping in an alleyway next to a dumpster."

There was a festering anger and hurt boiling just beneath the surface of those words, a wound that never had, and likely never would completely heal, but Wendy decided not to comment on it. It really wasn't any of her business, and she had pried enough out of him this evening anyway. 

"Oh man. That sucks," she sympathized glumly.

"At least I was down near Pheonix at the time," Stan recanted. "So even though it was winter it wasn't like I was in danger of freezing or anything." 

A puzzled frown worked it's was across Stan's jaw, and he scratched at his head slightly. "At least I think I was down near Pheonix. My memory's still a bit fuzzy from time to time thanks to McGucket's crazy gun thing."

Wendy snorted a little at the man's description of the memory gun before her expression turned somberly curious again.

"You really spent Christmas like that though?" the teen asked.

A look that Wendy couldn't quite read flashed across Stan's face and darkened his gaze, but it was gone in an instant and quickly replaced by a fairly mild and self-reproachful scowl. "Eh. Well, it's not like I didn't deserve it."

The retired conman savored one last large puff of his cigarette, watching the smoke trail lazily up towards the pine needle canopy, before finally tossing it into the snow over by Wendy's previously discarded one. In the dying daylight around them, the orange glow of its embers seemed especially bright and vibrant. Though the sunset couldn't be seen from behind the grey overcast skies, night was apparently well on its way. Idily, Wendy wondered just how long the two of them had been out here. If the modest burning cold in the tip of her nose and fingers were anything to go by, then probably too long.

Stan raised his brow and offered the redhead a somewhat pointed look as he gestured to their abandoned cigarettes. "A friendly word of advice if you decide ya do want to pick up this habit, you're going to end up getting a real nasty cold pretty much every winter season."

"Yeah," Wendy agreed, cringing slightly, "I don't think 'old man tobacco' is really my thing. If I want to look cool smoking, I'll just vape."

"The hell is a vape?" Stan grumbled.

"Smoking for anyone who's young enough to not need a hearing aid," she teased.

The older man huffed good-humoredly at her. His eyes crinkled at the corners slightly as he smiled again. It was 'that' smile, that genuine smile that made Wendy's heart race and chest tighten. She could feel a heat starting to blossom across her freckled cheeks again, and had to quickly tear her gaze away from Stan and out into the grey twilight forest to try and temper the growing blush.

Stan seemed to misinterpret her behavior as further despondency.

"Ah, chin up kid," he coaxed genially, lightly resting a hand on her shoulder. "You can balance living your life the way you want and being responsible to your family. It just takes a little effort, and a little sneaking around is all." 

Stan emphasized that with a faux-innocent grin as he looked to their discarded cigarettes before his expression morphed back into something a bit more somber and genuine, almost kind. Well, kind for a curmudgeon like him at least. Wendy could feel her face growing several shades redder as his calloused hand gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. 

"'Sides, you mean the world to Dan. He'd never leave you out to dry, even if ya really screwed up big time. And, ya know, even if he did, you can always give me a ring and I'll shell out a couple grand to help pay your bail." He chuckled, teasing smirk firmly in place. "Probably."

Wendy's crippling infatuation was in full swing, but she at least managed to look her former employer in the eye and offer a shakey "T-thanks, Mr. Pines."

"Not a problem kiddo."

"I, uh. I..." The redhead's eyes were darting back and forth between Stan's face and his hand gripping onto her shoulder. Her pulse was thrumming wildly in her ears. She felt like she should say something else to him, but she didn't really know what. Something, anything.

"I really like how you look in your new hat," she blurted out abruptly. 

Wendy could have slapped herself. She might have if she wasn't currently in company. Yes, it was true that Stan's new seafarer look was fairly pleasing to her, but there was no need to let him know that she thought that. Besides, bringing it out of the blue like that probably made her come across as a spaz.

Stan raised a surprised eyebrow at the teen's complement. "Huh? My hat?" His hand lifted off Wendy's shoulder as reached up to pluck the red beanie from the top of his head. He gave it an appreciative look, and then shook it to clear off the remaining snowflakes still clinging to the wool before handing it over to her.

"Here. You can have it if ya want."

Wendy was almost sure at this point that her face was redder than the hat her former boss was gifting her with. She stammered.

"W-wait, that's not what I-" The teen was interrupted by Stan shoving the beanie into her open hands.

"Ah, just go ahead and take it," he insisted gruffly. "Mabel's kept 'inconspicuously' asking me about my head size, so I'm at least eighty percent sure that she's making me a hat for Christmas, which means I'm going to be stuck wearing whatever she's concocted for the next couple years or so." The old shyster gave a nonchalant shrug. "No sense in just letting this collect dust in my drawer. Ford wants the extra space for his sextant, or whatever, anyways."

Wendy's eyes anxiously darted down to the wool hat laying in her hands, and then back up to Stan again. It still retained some of the man's previous warmth, which was a soothing balm to her freezing hands, and she couldn't help but clutch tightly at it. Her face was burning. "I...I-uh."

Stan finally seemed to notice just how utterly crimson the teen's countenance had become, and his expression morphed to one of mild concern. 

"You okay there, Wendy? You look like you're starting to get a fever or something." He placed one of his chilled hands up against the teen's cheek as though to check her temperature. Wendy was all but paralyzed by the gesture and shivered under his touch. 

The older man grunted thoughtfully as he studied her, and a mortifying, terrifying thought occurred to Wendy at that moment. 

It wasn't possible. Stan didn't... He couldn't have suspected. He didn't know, did he?

It wouldn't have surprised her if he did. She'd been fairly obvious from her own perspective and Stan himself was often a lot more intuitive than he let on. Wendy, on the other hand, couldn't honestly decipher the man's expression one way or the other. He was a professional liar, after all, and had an exceptional poker face. He apparently had his tells, but so far the only person who'd been skilled enough to pick up on them consistently was Mabel, and she'd refused to share the secret in order to keep up her winning streak in cards. As much as this unknown ate away at her confidence, Wendy was up a river without a paddle in terms of seeing through the man.

The rapidly dimming light wasn't helping Wendy's situation, but she thought she might have caught a glimmer of amusement in Stan's brown eyes as he gave her a friendly pat on the back and started steering them both back towards the Shack. His hand was pleasantly warm and heavy on her shoulders. Vibrant green eyes shyly darted down and away from the man's smiling face.

"Come on," he grumbled cheerily. "Let's get back inside before this white garbage starts to soak in through my boots. I don't have high-quality ones like you do."

The two of them started trudging their way back through the woods again, their footfalls muted by the soft snow. Evening truely had settled in now, and if it hadn't been for the brightness of the white ground beneath them then it might have been difficult to find their way back through the dim gloom. Step by step the shadowed, towering pines slowly thinned and parted till the warm glow of the shack started shining clearly through, bouncing bright golden light upon the frost covered trees and icy ground. Wendy smiled at the sight of it, unconsciously fiddling with the knit cap still grasped in her hands before carefully slipping the candy red wool over the top of her darker red hair. Between this and Dipper's cap, the teen seemed to be amassing a collection of Pines family hats, and she wryly wondered to herself if Mabel and Stanford had any preferred headgear that she might be able to snag as well.

As the pair drew closer, the sounds of the party still going on inside the building grew louder, and a hearty laugh the teen recognized as belonging to Stanford suddenly rang out powerfully over the other muffled noises from within.

Stan made it up to the porch first and began banging his boots on the wood to try and shake off the snow that still clung to them. Some of the white powder tumbled off onto one of the potted poinsettias the teen had earlier decorated the top of the stairs with, and its red leaves took on an almost frosted look. He turned back to Wendy when he noticed that she was hanging behind and hadn't joined him. She stood there out in the clearing, shivering and blushing fiercely, the snow falling gently around her.

"What's the holdup?" Stan called, the vapor from his breath taking on a golden tint from the light of the shack as it danced out in front of him. His entire dark silhouette seemed to be wreathed by a soft amber glow.

Wendy attempted to keep her gaze cool despite the heat welling up in her chest and cheeks. His whole frame was lit in such a striking way that it made him seem unearthly, unreal, like long gone hero stepping out of a legend.

"W-what I was trying to say earlier..." She started, but trailed off after a moment as she noticed something hanging from the rafters of the porch just above the old conman. Green eyes sparkled with a mix of determination and anxiety, and the teen's pulse began to race like a runaway freight train. Her gaze wandered back down to Stan almost sheepishly as her cheeks burned like a wildfire. Did she dare? 

Wendy's foot made a loud crunch on the ice-covered snow as she finally allowed herself to begin moving out of the freezing air, and in closer to the Mystery Shack.

"... Is this about why you stormed out before?" Stan guessed, a single brow inching into his hairline. His glasses flashed like the sun for a second in the warm light of the shack. His curiosity filled stare followed her movements up towards the porch, up towards him.

The teen stopped just a foot and a half away from her former boss, the wood of the deck thunking dully beneath her heavy boots. She was close enough now that she could make out the finer details of his face. The small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth. His silvery hair shining in the saffron light. The dark brown eyes that smoldered behind his glasses. His sharp jawline and the light grey four-o-clock shadow that covered it. The light dusting of snow upon his head and shoulders.

Wendy blinked slowly as she drank him in through her frost-covered lashes. Her voice was quiet, but firm and unwavering when she spoke to him, brimming with conviction.

"Stan you... You're a really cool guy."

Stan blinked, stunned and surprised at the sudden compliment, before his expression shifted into a faux-confident and self-assured smirk. He shrugged and grumbled genially. "I admit, I am pretty amazing-"

"No. I mean it, Stan." Wendy cut him off. She didn't want him to just brush her words aside like that. She meant them, and she wanted him to know that she meant them. 

The distance between them shrunk further as the redhead took a step towards him, now intimately within his personal space, close enough that she could smell his cheap cologne, and the tobacco still hanging in his breath. Her cool green eyes locked with his and held them both in place through the force of her will, scorching blush currently overtaking her entire countenance or not. The heart in her chest was pounding against her ribcage like a jackhammer. 

"You're a really cool guy," she breathed, the golden wisps curling out from her mouth and into the icy air, reaching out towards him.

Then, without another word, Wendy took a risk and made her move. The redhead clasped her hands behind her back as she leaned over and kissed the older man lightly on the cheek. His stubble was rough and warm beneath her soft lips. 

After a moment, she pulled away, gazing at him meekly through the gently falling snow, but still smiling nonetheless. Stan, for his part, seemed utterly dumbfounded by her actions and just stood there in silence, staring at her. A scarlet tinted blush was now present on his face that mirrored Wendy's own.

"Um.."

In answer to his unspoken question, Wendy pointed upwards to the small bunch of mistletoe hanging in the rafters above them. She had mocked Soos when he'd hung it up earlier, saying that he was just looking for another excuse to kiss his girlfriend in public, but she was grateful now that he'd ignored her and put it up anyways.

Stan's head tilted as he followed the teen's gesture toward the green bundle, and he let out a soft, "Oh" in response. His gaze fell back down to her, his expression still a mixture of mild shock and confusion, and his posture as stiff as though he'd just had a bucket of ice water casually dumped on him. The conman's usual sly charm and cunning seemed almost completely absent.

Wendy's brain was struggling to come up with more of an explanation, something else that she could say to him to ease the awkwardness of their current situation, but whatever she had begun to formulate died on her tongue the moment she noticed that her lipstick had left a red mark on Stan's cheek. Her eyes bulged almost comically in complete mortification, and her face blazed with a shame-filled heat. Whatever the tiny bit of confidence that she'd managed to muster up dissolved back into the stuttering and blushing embarrassment that she'd been swimming in throughout the evening. Her stomach was practically doing backflips.

The teen's panicked gaze darted back and forth between the dark frosty forest, the warm cozy shack, and her former employer's bewildered expression, looking for an escape, any escape. Finally settling on the middle option, she quickly whirled over to the door of the gift shop and yanked it open roughly. Warm yellow light and loud chattering voices flooded out across the shadowy snow covered porch, and the teen's body was hit by a blast of toasty air. She took a step inside, not even bothering to take off her soaking wet boots, but then stopped, and turned to peek back out over her shoulder.

The older man was still standing there on the porch, the towering frost laced pines and bleak white snowscape setting up picturesque canvas behind him. His brow was furrowed, and his gaze pierced sharply through the softly falling flurry as though he was studying her. Both lipstick stain and blush marred his stubbled cheeks in dueling shades of red. 

Red like her dress, Wendy noted. Red like her hair, and the hat of his that she was currently sporting. Red like the flush that was engulfing the entirety of her face in a searing embarrassment and longing. Red like the twin poinsettias tastefully placed on either side of the stairway leading up to the porch.

Red like the teen very much suspected Stan's favorite color to be.

Wendy's hand tightened slightly on the door handle, and her eyes sparkled with mirth. She threw a small, impish smirk over at infamous charlatan's direction, and managed a stuttering, "Merry C-Christmas Mr. Pines", before ducking into the shack and lightly closing the door behind her.


End file.
